


Fancy meeting you here

by digitalsoop



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2349917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalsoop/pseuds/digitalsoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gou hadn't planned on spending her afternoon stuck in line with her ex-boyfriend. But at least he's nice enough to still hold her books for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fancy meeting you here

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "exes meeting again after not speaking for years" that I got on Tumblr.

Gou tried not to groan too loudly; her feet hurt, her arms hurt, her hands hurt, her back hurt—how long could a line to buy books possibly be? How many books could she possibly need? Rin had tried to warn her, had offered to go with her, had offered to  _send_ someone with her and she had stubbornly refused. Sure she was not athletic in the slightest but she wasn’t so weak that she couldn’t sell her college books on her own. She let out a long, slow breath through pursed lips; her hair was starting to stick to her forehead and the back of her neck. She clenched her jaw and slowly turned her wrist, hoping to catch a glimpse of her watch without jostling her pile of books too much. A feat that she promptly decided was absolutely impossible. 

"Do you need some help?" 

"N-no I’m fine." The deep voice made her jump, and she leaned backwards and pressed her chin firmly on top of her pile to stop it from crashing onto the floor. "There’s only a few people ahead of me. Thank you." 

"There’s about ten people ahead of you, actually." Large hands wiggled the top half of her pile out from under her chin. Without the weight her arms turned into noodles, and she clutched the rest of her books to her chest. 

"Really, thank you but I’m fine." Her shoulders started to burn at the thought of taking the books back, but she turned and held out her arms. A very tall, very broad man with very bright eyes was smiling down at her, holding the books in the crook of his arm like it was barely heavier than a three-ring-binder. She gaped up at him, leaning forward to get a better look. "S-sousuke!" 

"Yo." He tilted his head and stood next to her as if they had arrived together. Besides the books he had taken from her, he was carrying some of his own books as well. "I thought my pile last year was pretty light. Turns out I had forgotten some."

She laughed and hunched her shoulders. “Oh. I hope I didn’t forget any of mine.” 

"I hope you didn’t have more than this either." 

She laughed again. Sousuke’s expression was as stoic as ever, to the untrained eye at least. But she had grown up with Sousuke. She had dated Sousuke. His eyebrows were raised slightly and his jaw relaxed; he was actually pretty happy. She had never imagined that she would run into a former boyfriend and find him happy to spend time next to her. 

The break up hadn’t exactly been tactful.

"You aren’t just using me to cut in line, are you?" 

Well, none of her conversations with him had ever been very tactful. 

"I was right behind you in line, so I didn’t get very far in the end." His expression turned wistful, looking ahead at something she couldn’t see. Salvation at the registers probably.

"Oh." She shifted her weight and turned away, staring at the neat shelves of books. The silence was stuck exactly in the middle of comfortable and uncomfortable; should she just start offering up details of her life? How would that conversation turn out? Getting caught up in a bragging competition wasn’t how she wanted to spend her time in line. She could ask polite, expected questions about his life, but she wouldn’t be able to ask too much. It had been her choice to break up. She didn’t want him to think she had regretted it.

Why was Sousuke causing her more distress now than he had while they were dating?

"Rin brags about you."

She sputtered and put a hand over her mouth, muffling a shocked yell just in time. Sousuke glanced down at her, his eyes practically lit up with laughter. She lightly patted the side of her face which was practically on fire. “He does?”

"Yeah. He tells everyone about how his little sister is graduating early from college with one hundred and ten percent in every class."

"Sousuke, don’t tease me."

He laughed, hunching his shoulders and closing his eyes. “Sorry. But he is proud of you.”

They shuffled forward, covering more space than Gou could have ever hoped. There must have been one person like her making people like Sousuke wait for hours while they returned an entire library. Her bangs were starting to stick to her forehead again. Maybe Sousuke would be so intimidating no one would dare say anything while she was actually in the store.

He stayed by her side even though the conversation had abruptly died. He leaned against the counter after her books thudded onto the counter and the clerk could barely hide the look of despair on his face. They both watched as the books were paged through, sorted, and scanned, and they both gave the small amount of money she was given in return a very critical look. 

She could have left then, thanking Sousuke for his help with her books and telling him it was nice to see him again after so long. Instead, she put her money into her purse then folded her hands on the counter as Sousuke lazily slid his books into the center of the counter. The clerk’s hands were shaking under his icy judgement. The glare he received when he announced the small sum prompted him to hand the money over to Gou instead, who dumbly took it, blushed, and shuffled away with Sousuke striding after her. 

She didn’t know where she was going, but after they left the store they walked for some time, his money clutched in her hands and his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. “Hey.”

"Ah—sorry," she quickly held out the money.

"That’s not what I was gonna bring up, but alright," he raised an eyebrow and slipped the bills out of her hands. "I was gonna say I’m proud of you, too." 

"Huh?" She frowned, she raised an eyebrow, and then she laughed. "What?" 

"I’m being serious. You said you were gonna put everything you had into school, that you had a lot of goals to achieve."

"And no time for a boyfriend," she mumbled, remembering her rather impartial speech that had left Sousuke completely speechless for nearly five years. 

He laughed, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. I thought you were full of it to be honest. Then I started hearing about what you were putting yourself through to reach all those goals of yours.”

She wanted to stop him. To step in front of him, reach up and cover his mouth, to beg him to stop speaking. She wanted to bask in the praise and she wanted to run and hide, but all she could too was continue walking beside him. He sighed and looked down at her, fondness mixed with—what? Sadness? Resentment? Resignation?

"I thought I was lucky you even let me hold you back for a year."

"That’s not how it was at all!" She shook her head. "I never thought you were holding me back." 

He slowed down, his shoes scuffing against the cement as he stopped. She was glad that there weren’t too many people on the sidewalk, because his bulk was definitely taking a lot of room and everyone would have been stopped and had no choice but to look at them.

"I just didn’t want you to be stuck with a girlfriend that never paid any attention to you." 

For a moment his expression was uncomfortably familiar; eyes wide, jaw slack, no hope for a single word to come out. Then he blinked. He smiled, which grew into a grin, and then he was laughing. She stepped back, blushing and trying not to scowl. She marched forward, using his wide frame to hide herself from anyone that would have been walking up behind him. “Stop laughing, I’m being serious!” 

"Sorry, sorry. You’re still amazing, you know that? Even with your own goals to worry about, you still worry about the people around you more. Just like your brother." He put his hands into his pockets and tilted his chin down to give her warm smile. "Will it be like no time passed between you and me, too?" 

"Buy me an ice cream and we’ll see." 

"Huh? But you got more money from your books than me." 

"Okay, I know how to solve this," she smiled and pushed up one of her sleeves. Sousuke hesitated, his smile quickly turning to a mix between dread and determination when she placed one fist in the palm of her hand. "Jan Ken Pon!" 

**Author's Note:**

> The Matsuoka siblings are formidable Jan Ken Pon opponents that Sousuke has learned to be wary of.


End file.
